How to Implement Localization in Strapi Without Breaking Your Content Workflow

Today, speaking only one language means leaving opportunity on the table.

Your digital product, your app, your website, all hold immense potential, but that potential is capped when your message can't connect with local audiences in the words they understand best.

The task of expanding into multiple markets often lands on your desk, and it can feel like a mountain to climb.

You're not just flipping a switch; you're building bridges to new customers, and every broken link or awkward translation can weaken the connection.

Strapi localization is the core Internationalization (i18n) feature for creating, managing, and delivering content in multiple languages from a single instance.

By enabling localization on specific content types, content teams can produce unique versions of an entry for each configured locale.

Developers then fetch this language-specific content via the API to build tailored user experiences for global audiences.

If you're looking for a clear path forward, you've found it. The strategic "why" and the technical "how" to master Strapi's localization features.

Before getting into all that technical setup, it's important to understand the foundational concepts.

The terms "localization" and "internationalization" are often used interchangeably, but they represent two distinct, yet complementary, stages of building a global product. Getting this right is the first step toward a sound strategy.

Localization vs. Internationalization (i18n): Understanding the Nuance

So, how does localization differ from internationalization (i18n) in Strapi?

Let’s see it this way: Internationalization (i18n) is the process of architecting your application so that it can be adapted for various languages and regions without needing to re-engineer the core code. It's about building a flexible foundation.

You’re preparing your content models to handle multiple versions of an entry, making your backend capable of supporting a global audience. It's the "behind-the-scenes" work that makes localization possible.

Localization (l10n), on the other hand, is the process of actually adapting your internationalized app for a specific region or language.

This is the hands-on work of translating text, changing images to be culturally relevant, formatting dates and currencies correctly, and modifying layouts to suit the target locale. It's the visible, user-facing part of the equation where you tailor the experience to feel native to a specific audience.

In short, i18n builds the roads, and l10n decides which country's traffic laws to follow on those roads. You can't have one without the other for a truly global experience, which is why localization and internationalization are both critical.

Accommodating Cultural Differences: Beyond Just Translation for Global SEO

A common pitfall is treating localization as a simple find-and-replace for text. True success lies in accommodating cultural differences, which goes far beyond direct translation.

To genuinely connect with users in different languages and cultures, you must consider the context that gives words their meaning.

This involves deep market and cultural research. For example:

• Imagery: A picture of a family that resonates in a Western market might not connect with an audience in Asia. The people, the setting, and even the gestures might need to be localized.
• Colors: Colors carry potent cultural significance. The color white, often associated with purity in the West, is linked to mourning in some Eastern cultures.
• Layouts: Some languages, like Arabic and Hebrew, are read from right to left. A properly internationalized design must be able to flip its entire interface to prevent broken interfaces and deliver a natural user experience.

Search engines are sophisticated enough to recognize when content is genuinely tailored for a region versus when it's just a lazy translation.

Applying SEO best practices means creating an entire experience that feels authentic, which in turn builds trust, reduces bounce rates, and signals to search engines that your content is a high-quality result for that specific market.

This tool is what transforms your single-language CMS into a global content hub. It's built right into the core of Strapi v4 and newer, so you don't need to hunt for it; you just need to activate and configure it.

Enabling the i18n Plugin in Strapi: Your First Step to Multilingual Content

So, what is localization in Strapi? At its core, it's a system managed by the i18n plugin that allows you to create distinct versions of your content entries for different languages, or "locales."

This functionality is a native part of all modern Strapi versions (v4+), making it a stable and well-supported feature.

To get started, your only prerequisite is a working Strapi project.

From there, enabling the plugin is straightforward.

1. Install the Plugin: Open your terminal in the root of your Strapi project and run the installation command:

# Using npm

npm install @strapi/plugin-i18n

# Using yarn

yarn add @strapi/plugin-i18n

2. Enable the Plugin: Create or open the file config/plugins.js and ensure the i18n plugin is enabled:

module.exports = {

  // ...

  'i18n': {

    enabled: true,

  },

  // ...

}

3. Rebuild Your Admin Panel: For the changes to take effect in the admin interface, you need to rebuild it:

# Using npm

npm run build

# Using yarn

yarn build

Once you restart your server, you'll find a new "Internationalization" link under the "Settings" section of your admin panel.

You are now ready to unleash multilingual content. The plugin is built to make localization easier, giving you the foundation to efficiently localize your content.

To make sense of what this plugin actually does, here's a helpful way to think about it:

Think of Strapi’s i18n plugin like a multi-story library. The library (your CMS) holds the same book titles (content types), but on each floor (locale), they’re stocked in different languages.

The librarian (Strapi’s admin panel) helps you add translations, while readers (front-end apps) can choose which floor to enter, seamlessly accessing the right version.

Configuring Locales and Managing Translations in Strapi

With the plugin enabled, your next step is to configure locales. This is where you tell Strapi which languages you plan to support.

Navigate to Settings > Internationalization in your Strapi admin panel. Here you'll see a list of available locales, with English set as the default.

From this screen, you can:

1. Add New Locales: Click the "Add new locale" button. You can choose from a comprehensive list of languages and culture codes (e.g., fr for French, fr-CA for Canadian French).
2. Set a Default Locale: One locale must be designated as the default. This is the language that Strapi will use as a fallback if a translation for a specific entry doesn't exist. It's also typically the primary language you create content in.
3. Enable Localization on Content Types: This is the most crucial step. A locale configuration on its own does nothing until you specify which content is translatable.
   • Go to the Content-Type Builder.
   • Select the Content-Type you want to make multilingual (e.g., "Article").
   • Click the "Edit" button for that content type.
   • In the right-hand panel, select "Advanced Settings."
   • Check the box for "Enable localization for this Content-Type."

Once you save, a transformation happens in your content editor. When you create or edit an "Article," you'll see a new dropdown in the right sidebar under "Internationalization."

This allows your content team to switch between the multiple locales you've configured, creating a unique version of that article for each of your multiple languages.

This powerful native functionality is the starting point. For large-scale projects, many teams integrate Strapi with external translation management systems and translation tools to automate and streamline the process, but the core content structure is managed right here.

Once the technical foundation is in place, the real work begins.

An effective content localization strategy is more than just a checklist; it’s a mindset that should permeate your entire development process.

The biggest mistake teams make is treating localization as a final step, an add-on to a finished product. This approach is not only inefficient but can lead to costly redesigns and technical debt.

To build something that lasts, you need to shift your perspective.

Instead of treating i18n as a plugin you bolt on, it should be regarded as an architectural decision at the very start of product design.

Designing for Multilingual Content: A Strategic Architectural Decision from Day One

Treating localization as an architectural pillar will transform your content delivery approach. 

Expanding into international markets can be a smooth process or a series of frustrating hurdles, and the choice is often made in the first week of a project.

So what does "designing from day one" actually look like?

• Content Modeling: When you build your content types in Strapi, think about which fields will need translation. Should the slug be localized for SEO? What about alt-text for images? Making these decisions early prevents data migration nightmares later.
• Frontend Design: Your UI needs to be flexible. German words, for example, are often much longer than their English counterparts. If your buttons and navigation bars have fixed widths, they will break. Your design must accommodate text expansion and contraction from the start. Similarly, planning for right-to-left languages means building CSS and component logic that can be flipped programmatically.

Adopting this forward-thinking approach is the key to a successful content localization strategy. 

It's the difference between building a scalable global platform and a single-language product with a few translations bolted on.

Why Localization is a Growth-Critical Initiative: Tapping into Global Markets

It’s easy for localization to be seen as a purely technical task—a feature request to be checked off a list.

But its impact is profoundly strategic.

Your work as a developer on this front directly connects to your company's ability to compete and grow. When you build multilingual capabilities, you are building the infrastructure for market expansion.

And this isn't a small opportunity. This is about tapping into massive, underserved global markets.

This data provides actionable insights: companies are investing heavily in localization because it unlocks revenue.

When you localize your content, you are making it accessible to the millions of potential customers across regions who don't speak your primary language.

For the markets you want to enter, presenting the content in the local language isn't just a courtesy—it's a baseline expectation.

By building this capability in Strapi, you are giving your entire organization the key to unlock that global growth.

With localization enabled and configured, your Strapi instance is now technically capable of handling multilingual content.

But technology is only half the battle.

The next, more human, challenge is to adapt your content creation process. This is where you empower your content team to move beyond simple translation and start a genuine dialogue with local audiences.

Translating and Adapting Content for Local Audiences in Strapi

For a content creator, the new workflow should feel intuitive, not intimidating. Strapi's interface is designed to make this process straightforward.

So, how do you create localized versions of content in Strapi?

1. Start with the Source: Navigate to the content type you've enabled for localization (e.g., "Articles") and open an existing entry that you want to translate. This is usually your default language version.
2. Use the Locale Switcher: In the right-hand sidebar, you'll find the "Internationalization" panel. It shows a dropdown list of all the locales you configured.
3. Create the New Version: Select the target language you want to create (e.g., "Spanish (es)"). Strapi will then generate a new, distinct version of that entry linked to the original. Any fields that you've designated as non-localizable will be carried over and locked, ensuring consistency. The localizable fields will be ready for new input.
4. Translate and Adapt: This is the most critical step. Your content team can now translate your content. But more importantly, they can adapt it. This is their opportunity to change headlines to be more culturally relevant, swap images to better resonate with the new audience, and adjust the tone and style. They are creating new localized content, not just a carbon copy in a different language. After filling in the details, they can save this version independently.

This manual workflow is perfect for many teams, but what about scaling? Can you programmatically create or update localized entries via the Strapi API?

Absolutely. For teams integrating with external translation management systems or building automated workflows, Strapi’s API is fully equipped.

You can programmatically create or update entries by making a POST or PUT request and simply specifying the locale code in the request body.

This allows you to push the content to be localized directly into your CMS, making it a powerful hub for all your multilingual content with minimal manual intervention.

How Strapi Customizes Access and Manages Missing Translations

As you scale your localization efforts, two practical questions will inevitably arise: 

What happens when a piece of content isn't translated yet, and how do you manage a team of translators without giving them access to everything?

First, let's address the common scenario: What happens if a translation is missing for a locale?

Imagine your site is live in English and French. You publish a new blog post in English but the French translation isn't ready.

If a user visits your French site and requests that article, you don't want them to see a 404 error. Strapi handles this gracefully with a fallback mechanism.

By default, if an entry for a requested locale doesn't exist, the API will serve the content from your default locale instead. This ensures your user always gets a usable page, preventing a broken experience.

Next, you need to think about your team. How do you manage editorial workflows for translators and content editors?

This is where Strapi's Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) becomes essential for creating clean editorial workflows.

You can create custom roles to give translators precise permissions. For example, you could create a "Spanish Translator" role and configure it so that the user can:

• Only access specific content types (e.g., "Articles" and "Pages").
• Only perform certain actions (e.g., create and update, but not publish or delete).
• Only edit the "Spanish (es)" locale.

This powerful combination prevents a translator for one of your different languages and cultures from accidentally modifying your localized content in another language.

It keeps your workflow secure, organized, and scalable, giving each team member exactly the access they need to do their job effectively.

You've successfully set up your locales, and your content team is busy creating translated entries. 

Now comes the crucial step: fetching that specific, localized content to display on your frontend application.

Let's walk through how to query localized content using both the REST API and GraphQL.

How do you query localized content via the REST API?

Fetching localized content with the REST API is incredibly straightforward.

The key is the locale parameter, which you can add to your API requests to specify which version of the content you want.

Let's look at some common scenarios:

1. Fetching a Collection of Entries for a Specific Locale:

To get all "Articles" that have been localized for French (fr), you simply add locale=fr to your query:

GET /api/articles?locale=fr

This request will return only the French versions of your articles. If an article doesn't have a French version, it will be omitted from the results.

2. Fetching a Single Entry for a Specific Locale:

If you know the ID of an entry, you can request its specific localization. For example, to get the Spanish (es) version of the article with ID 1:

GET /api/articles/1?locale=es

If the Spanish version doesn't exist, Strapi's default fallback logic will kick in, and it will return the content from your default locale (e.g., English).

3. Populating Relations with Localized Content:

When you retrieve an entry, you often need its related data. The populate parameter works seamlessly with localization. If you request a French article and populate its "author" and "category" relations, Strapi will fetch the French versions of those relations if they exist.

GET /api/articles?locale=fr&populate=author,category

This ensures that your entire data graph remains consistent with the requested language, giving you all the content with the correct translations in a single call.

How do you query localized content via GraphQL?

1. Querying a Collection of Entries:

To fetch all articles for the German (de) locale, you would structure your query like this:

query {

  articles(locale: "de") {

    data {

      attributes {

        title

        content

      }

    }

  }

}

2. Querying a Single Entry:

Similarly, to retrieve a single article by its ID for a specific locale:

query {

  article(id: 1, locale: "de") {

    data {

      attributes {

        title

        content

        locale

      }

    }

  }

}

3. Fetching Available Localizations:

A powerful feature of the GraphQL plugin is the ability to query all available localizations for a single entry. This is incredibly useful for building a language switcher on your frontend. You can fetch one version of your content and also get a list of all its other translated counterparts.

query {

  article(id: 1) {

    data {

      attributes {

        title

        locale # The locale of this entry (e.g., "en")

        localizations {

          data {

            attributes {

              locale # The other available locales (e.g., "fr", "es")

              slug

            }

          }

        }

      }

    }

  }

}

This query gives you everything you need to render the current page and provide links to its other language versions, making for a seamless user experience.

As you move from theory to practice, you'll encounter challenges that go beyond the initial setup. 

Launching one or two extra languages might be simple, but scaling to five, ten, or even twenty brings a new level of complexity.

Anticipating these hurdles is key to building a robust and manageable multilingual system that doesn't buckle under its own weight.

Managing Multiple Locales and Ensuring Quality Assurance

When your content repository expands across multiple locales, maintaining consistency and quality becomes a primary concern.

Every piece of content now has several parallel versions, and a simple update in one language can create a ripple effect of necessary changes across all others.

So, what are the best practices for managing this complexity?

1. Establish a Clear "Source of Truth" Workflow: Your default locale (e.g., English) should serve as the definitive source. Create a clear process for how content flows. When an English article is updated, how are the translators for other locales notified? Integrating with a Translation Management System (TMS) can automate this, but even a manual process using status fields in Strapi (e.g., "Needs Translation," "In Review") can bring order to the chaos.
2. Leverage Roles and Permissions: As mentioned before, Strapi's Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) is your best friend. Create specific roles for each language team, restricting their access to only the locale they are responsible for. This prevents accidental edits and keeps the workspace clean for each contributor.
3. Implement a Rigorous Quality Assurance Process: You cannot afford to skip this step. Quality assurance for localized content is a two-part process:
   • Linguistic Testing: This goes beyond checking for grammatical errors. It ensures the tone is culturally appropriate, the terminology is correct for the target industry and region, and the overall message resonates with the local audience.
   • Functional Testing: This is where the technical side comes in. Functional testing helps verify that the translated content doesn't break the user interface. Do longer German words overflow their containers? Do right-to-left languages like Arabic render correctly? Testing ensures that your UI remains flexible and functional for every user.

Expert Tip: Your localization QA process isn't just about catching typos; it's about ensuring the user experience feels native, not translated. Rigorous testing ensures the design accommodates content variations, preventing broken layouts and maintaining a high standard of quality for every audience.

Overcoming Performance and Scalability Concerns for Global Reach

As your number of locales and content entries grows, so does the amount of data in your database. This can lead to performance concerns if not managed properly.

A slow API response can degrade the user experience, impacting everything from user engagement to SEO rankings.

The goal is to ensure seamless user experiences across regions, regardless of the scale.

Here are key strategies to address scalability concerns:

• Database Indexing: As your content grows, ensure your database tables are properly indexed. Strapi does a good job of this out of the box, but for custom queries, you may need to add indexes on frequently filtered fields (like locale, slugs, or categories) to speed up lookups.

By proactively addressing these performance factors, you can build a Strapi backend that is not only rich with multilingual content but also fast and reliable, providing a seamless user experience for your global audience.

While entering translations directly into the Strapi admin panel is a great starting point, it doesn’t scale effectively for teams managing a large volume of multilingual content across many locales. 

Professional translation is a specialized field, and your workflow needs to accommodate the expert translation tools that your language partners use.

This is where Strapi's API-first architecture truly shines, allowing it to serve as the central hub in a sophisticated, automated ecosystem.

These systems offer features like translation memory (to avoid re-translating the same phrases), glossaries (to ensure consistent terminology), and collaborative tools for professional translators.

The typical automated workflow looks something like this:

1. Content Creation: A content editor creates or updates an entry in the default language within Strapi.
2. Automated Export: Upon publishing, a webhook in Strapi is triggered. This webhook fires a request to a custom middleware or a service like Zapier, which then calls the TMS API to push the content that needs translating.
3. Professional Translation: Inside the TMS, professional translators get to work. They use the platform's advanced features to ensure high-quality, consistent translations. They aren't required to learn the Strapi interface; they work in their own specialized environment.
4. Automated Import: Once a translation is marked as complete in the TMS, it triggers another webhook. This sends the translated content back to your application, which then uses the Strapi API to programmatically create or update the entry in the corresponding locale.

This entire process transforms your workflow from a manual, copy-paste chore into a highly efficient, automated pipeline.

By connecting Strapi to professional translation services and platforms, you leverage the best of both worlds:

Strapi's flexible content modeling and robust APIs, combined with the powerful, specialized features of dedicated translation management systems.

This integration is the key to scaling your localization efforts without sacrificing quality or speed.

For most production-grade projects, you'll want to select a set of complementary tools and technologies to build a complete localization stack.

Choosing the right localization tools depends entirely on your team's workflow, the scale of your content, and your budget.

Your "localization stack" can generally be broken down into three key areas:

1. Translation Management Systems (TMS): As we discussed, a TMS is the platform of choice for managing professional translation workflows. Services like Lokalise, Phrase, and Smartling are built to handle translation memory, glossaries, and collaboration between language professionals. They are the ideal solution when you need to separate the act of content management (which happens in Strapi) from the specialized act of translation.

3. Frontend Internationalization Libraries: Your backend is only half the story. Once you fetch the localized content from Strapi, your frontend application needs to know how to handle it. This is where client-side i18n libraries come in.
   • For React or Next.js projects, react-i18next is the industry standard.
   • For Vue developers, vue-i18n is the go-to choice. These libraries provide the tools to manage translation strings (for UI elements like buttons and labels), format dates, numbers, and currencies according to locale conventions, and handle the logic for language switching on the client side.

Ultimately, selecting the right localization tools is about building a workflow that empowers your team.

A small project with two languages might only need Strapi and a frontend library, while a large enterprise application will almost certainly benefit from a dedicated TMS and a tight plugin integration.

Analyze your needs, evaluate your options, and assemble the stack that will make your global ambitions a reality.

Upgrading a major version of any software can feel like a high-stakes operation, and when you have a complex set of localized content, the risks can feel even greater.

But a successful migration requires careful planning and execution.

So, how do you migrate localization data from Strapi v4 to v5?

The core of the process relies on following the official Strapi migration guides and using the provided data migration scripts.

These scripts are designed to handle the underlying database schema changes, ensuring that the relationships between your original content and all its localized versions are preserved.

While the scripts do the heavy lifting, your role is to prepare, execute, and meticulously verify the outcome.

Here’s a breakdown of the key steps and considerations to safely migrate localization data:

1. Backup Everything (Non-Negotiable): Before you write a single line of code or run any script, create a complete backup of your entire project. This includes:
   • Your Database: Create a full dump of your database.
   • Your Codebase: Commit all your current changes to version control.
   • Your Uploads/Media Library: Back up your public/uploads folder. This safety net is your most important tool. If anything goes wrong, you can restore to a known good state and try again.

3. Run the Data Migration Scripts: Strapi provides scripts, often as part of a codemods package or a separate migration tool, to transform your data. When you run these scripts, they will connect to your Strapi v4 database and systematically update the schema and content to be compatible with Strapi v5. For your localized content, the script ensures that the links between an entry and its localizations are correctly transferred to the new structure.
4. Test, Test, and Test Again: Once the migration script has finished, the real verification work begins. Do not assume everything worked perfectly. Spin up your migrated Strapi v5 application in a staging or development environment and conduct a thorough check of all your localized content.
   • Check Relationships: Open an entry in the admin panel. Does the "Internationalization" sidebar correctly show all the linked localized versions?
   • Test API Responses: Make API calls for different locales. Do they return the correct content? Test your populate queries to ensure relations are also correctly localized.
   • Verify on the Frontend: Connect your frontend application to the migrated backend. Navigate through your site in every language you support. Check pages, articles, and any other localized content type.
   • CRUD Operations: Try creating a new entry and adding a translation for it. Then try updating and deleting entries to ensure all content management functions work as expected.

You now have a complete roadmap for mastering Strapi localization, one that turns a daunting technical challenge into a clear, achievable plan for growth.

By now, you see that this is about so much more than just translating your content. It’s about building bridges to new communities and unlocking the full potential of your digital presence.

By integrating localization strategically from day one and leveraging Strapi's robust features, you can build scalable, multilingual solutions that don't just comply with a requirement—they help you compete on a global scale.

You’re not just localizing your site; you are building a platform for global success. The investment you make in connecting with your audience in their own language will pay dividends in trust, engagement, and growth.

Ready to unleash the global potential of the content you've worked so hard to create? Book your discovery call to explore how we can tailor a solution for your unique needs.

1. How do you localize content in Strapi with the Localazy plugin?

Using the Localazy plugin streamlines the translation workflow. After installing the plugin from the Strapi marketplace, you connect it to your Localazy account.

From there, you can push content from specific fields directly to the Localazy platform for translation. Once the translations are complete, you can pull the new versions back into the correct locales in Strapi, often with just a few clicks.

2. What is localization in Strapi?

Localization in Strapi is the core feature, powered by the Internationalization (i18n) plugin, that enables you to create, manage, and deliver content in multiple languages. It allows you to create distinct versions of an entry for each language or "locale" you configure, all from a single Strapi instance.

3. What’s the difference between internationalization (i18n) and localization in Strapi?

Internationalization (i18n) is the process of preparing your Strapi application's architecture to handle multiple languages.

It's the foundational step of enabling the i18n plugin and configuring content types to be translatable. Localization (l10n) is the subsequent action of actually translating, adapting, and creating the content for a specific locale. In short, i18n builds the capability; localization is the act of using that capability.

4. How do I switch between locales in the Strapi admin panel?

When you are editing a content entry that has localization enabled, you will see an "Internationalization" section in the right-hand sidebar.

This section contains a dropdown menu showing all the locales you have configured. Simply select a different locale from the dropdown to view or edit its specific version of the content.

5. How do I create localized versions of content in Strapi?

To create a new localized version, start with an existing entry in your default language. In the "Internationalization" sidebar, select a new target locale from the dropdown.

Strapi will then generate a new, linked version of that entry for the new locale, copying over any non-localizable fields and leaving the localizable fields ready for you to translate and adapt.

6. How do I query localized content via the Strapi API?

For the REST API, you add the locale parameter to your request (e.g., /api/articles?locale=fr). For GraphQL, you use the locale argument in your query (e.g., articles(locale: "fr")).

In both cases, the API will return the content specifically for the requested locale, falling back to your default locale if a translation doesn't exist.

7. How can I optimize localized content for SEO?

Key SEO optimizations include:

• Localizing Slugs: Ensure your URL slugs are translated for each locale.
• Implementing Hreflang Tags: On your frontend, use hreflang tags in your HTML <head> to tell search engines about all the available language versions of a page.
• Cultural Adaptation: Go beyond direct translation to ensure your content is culturally relevant, which improves user engagement signals for search engines.
• Performance: Ensure your site loads quickly for all global audiences by using a CDN.

8. How do I migrate localized content when upgrading Strapi versions?

The process involves three main steps:

1. Backup: Create a full backup of your v4 database and project files.
2. Migrate: Follow the official Strapi migration guide for your specific version upgrade, using the provided data migration scripts to transform your database schema and content.
3. Verify: Thoroughly test the migrated data in a staging environment. Check API responses for all locales and confirm that all relationships between localized entries are intact in the admin panel.